For My Tummy

IBS, Probiotics, and Dannon Yogurts DanActive, Activia, and Activia Lite ™

Summary
Quick summary of the For My Tummy position:
Probiotics in pills or capsules that protect against stomach acid, GOOD.
Probiotics in food, exposed to digestive juices all the way to the gut, BAD.

Types of Probiotics
That is to say that probiotics such as Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ and Align ™, both reviewed on this blog, are helpful forms of probiotics, and the strains seem to help more than Acidophilus or the multiple strains in the Neutraceuticals products. Both Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ and Align ™ are encapsulated in such a way that they do not need to be refrigerated, as some probiotics do. They also seem to reach the gut and then have the intended effect of improving gut (large intestine) response in the digestion of foods on an IBS diet, and perhaps extend the range and types of foods that can be eaten.

Probiotics in Food
Probiotics as food additives are unlikely to produce such help, because they are unlikely to reach the gut with their probiotic bacteria intact. Dannon’s web site section for health professionals summarizes a study that says that indeed their probiotic travels the entire digestive tract and emerges in the same strength–and then omits all the details that help to judge a study’s validity. Not to mention that people with some digestive problems have lactose intolerance, strong enough that they cannot eat yogurt. The encapsulated pill/capsule form of probiotic stays together and protects the contents, the millions of “colony-forming” GOOD bacteria that will change the digestive activity in the gut in a good way.

Immune System Probiotics
This–the unlikeliness to be helpful–also goes for DanActive, ™ which contains “l-casei immunitas” ™ as its resident strain of bacteria. In contrast, if increased immune function is what you want, search here for the Ganeden Biotech product Sustenex ™. Sustenex provides an encapsulated form of patented probiotics that are designed to bypass digestive juices in the upper digestive tract. I’m holding off on a wholehearted endorsement, just because I haven’t investigated the research, and only know that Dr. Mehmet Oz is a fan.

Further Information
See the many posts here; search on “probiotics” and on “Dannon,” or select the category “Probiotics.”

Feel Welcome to Comment
Thanks for visiting; please leave a comment below, by clicking the “Comments” link.

January 25th, 2008 Posted by tummyblogger | Probiotics, Align, NSI Probiotics, Digesting Information, Dannon Activia Yogurt, Digestive Advantage - IBS, Sustenex | 14 comments

No IBS Symptom List on *This* Blog - A Personal Note

Introduction
Every once in while I read a post on another blog that is so good that I don’t just sit back and think, “Now there’s a good post.” No, I sit back and think, “What an admirable, original post! I wish I had written something like that.” Sophie, who runs the IBS Tales blog, has just written that kind of post, on “Why self-diagnosis is so crazy.”

Listing Reasons
From time to time I see lists of IBS symptoms on web sites and blogs. Without giving it much thought, I say to myself “Perhaps For My Tummy should do something like that,” and then never write it. Of course I’m a procrastinator; that’s a perfectly good reason for not setting up a page with common symptoms of IBS. A second reason is wanting to think that readers come to this blog with some knowledge of what Irritable Bowel Syndrome is (or isn’t) and what the symptom picture is likely to be. A third rationale is not particularly wanting to specialize in either IBS-C (predominantly constipation) or IBS-D (predominantly diarrhea) or IBS-A (C and D are Alternating), nor discuss the specific forms that IBS takes–so I don’t discuss the typing of IBS according to current or historical symptom. It’s just IBS, and you know what kind you have, presumably.

Deepest Concern
AND the deep underlying ultimate reason is that I don’t want you, the reader, to diagnose yourself based on this web site. Use a lot of self-help measures, yes. Avoid things that don’t help, yes. Diagnose yourself, no. If that means you go get that colonoscopy your doctor says you need to have for a diagnosis, then this site will cheer you on and provide moral support–mostly metaphorical, it’s true. And for more encouragement on that path, of getting a real medical IBS diagnosis, read Sophie’s post.

Discuss
Do you have a strong reaction to this policy? See the “No Comment” link below–or if there’s been a comment, the link will have the number of comments? Click on that and a window will open that allows you to disguise your identity and tell us what you think.

January 17th, 2008 Posted by tummyblogger | Blog, Medical, general, IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, IBS Symptoms | no comments

Dairy Intolerance in General - and in Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

About Lactose Intolerance
Digestive Health - Smart Brief has a note that points to excellent information about what is happening when you have lactose intolerance. I have had varying levels of lactose intolerance for much of my life; this article tells about the stages of lactose intolerance. This is a better description than the statistic “25% (if true) of people with IBS are lactose intolerant.” Yes, maybe in a cross-section of people with IBS right now that is not incorrect. I pessimistically suggest that if this statistic that’s been casually quoted elsewhere is survey-based, then it should be calculated for each age-group with IBS, not for the whole batch of us.

Because the author of the article cited in Digestive Health - Smart Brief, Pamela Stuppy, gets it right, I’m more inclined to believe her.

Your Comments, Please
Have you had changes in lactose tolerance during your life, where once “milk and cookies” were great, and now, not so much? Please use the “comment” link to send in your comments.

December 19th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | IBS Diet | no comments

Jolly Holidays - Yeah, Right: How the World Sees Irritable Bowel Syndrome

For those of you who are saying “Yeah, right!” to my post of earlier today on what to do at a holiday dinner or party, here is some commiseration from Sophie at IBS Tales. These quotes she lists might make you happier about staying home, if that’s your choice.

On the other hand, you can read through the quotes and say to yourself “Well, if I don’t hear *that* one, then the party/dinner went okay.”

And, if you are wondering about the sly strategies I suggest, and just want to honestly tell people –”I can’t eat that. I have IBS,” then read Sophie’s Reality List.

December 18th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | general | no comments

IBS Hints for Holiday Parties, Christmas Dinner, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s

When you are working on controlling IBS, and being in charge of what you eat, these events can wreck the best self-control. Not only are the holidays stressful in and of themselves, but they take away the one thing you can usually control — what you eat. Here are some hints for being away from home, faced with lots of food that is problematic.

First:

Remember this motto: “Never eat on an empty tummy,” from my Three Rules post.

This means that you start eating with a neutral food or with a soluble fiber. Another IBS blog linked here and said that meant a bowl of milk and fiber cereal. No, that’s INsoluble fiber (and milk is a trigger). What I mean by soluble fiber (SF) is a soluble fiber supplement such as FiberSure ™(inulin is the main ingredient) or Heather’s Organic Acacia Tummy Fiber ™(acacia powder is the main ingredient) or, possibly, store brands of soluble fiber supplements that use guar gum. Take some of this with you in a small travel bottle–with a half - teaspoon measuring spoon. After you do the hellos and greetings, before eating or drinking anything, grab a small glass and your small travel bottle, and mix some room-temperature water and soluble fiber supplement, and drink it. This calms down the gastrocolic reflex, which would otherwise react badly to just eating the first thing at hand.

Second:

No alcohol.

Alcohol is one of the triggers for IBS. It will not relieve stress. If you want alcohol to relax your social anxiety, just think of the drink you want as relaxing your bowels in unwanted ways, either stopping the muscles that pass material along, or relaxing control over elimination - maybe not at the party, but somewhere down the road.

In Some Order:

• NO ice water.
• NO holiday ham - or as little as possible
• NO turkey dark meat or skin
• NO vegetables drenched in butter/margarine/fat
• NO soda

Strategies:

Bring your own bottle. Use whatever will look wicked, but refuse to share. In the bottle will be:
• Room temperature water, or
• Soy or rice milk, or
• Soda gone flat, or
• Cold soy “coffee”
• Your own favorite IBS-safe smoothie

depending on the crowd.

Style:
Beforehand, write yourself into a movie script about someone carrying off a mild social deception with style. Give yourself friendly lines that sort of fit what people think they know about you. It might be

“I’m following the diet my guru tells me to, so I can’t . . .”
“This is my brand new holiday strategy, to . . .”

I like the “guru” one, for obvious reasons, and for subtle reasons. What is subtle is that your host/hostess doesn’t know who this is, and will (perhaps) be reluctant to undermine the discipline the guru has imposed — even if the only guru in your life is you. You may think of some other authority figure. Some ideas are:

I’m participating in a strictly controlled medical study, and can’t . . .
I’m taking a medicine and can’t . . .

My own strategy, long ago, was “I’ve had hepatitis and can’t drink/have shellfish/have fatty foods . . .” - but in this day and age that’s not really going to conquer your social anxiety.

Two more hints:

• If you are going with someone you know pretty well, clue him or her in on your strategy, and even practice a few scenarios.
• If you have a “fiction” to attribute responsibility to a guru or medical necessity, and the host/hostess or someone else starts to push and inquire, there’s always the strategy of “Oh, there’s the door!” or “I forgot something from my coat pocket. Where are the coats?” or “Didn’t I just hear the phone?” or, of course, “That’s my cell phone. I’ve got to take this call.”

Please write in and share your favorite hints, or comment on these. Look at the dark turquoise line that says (usually) “no comments.” Click on those words, and you will be able to leave a comment. When you write in a comment, that phrase at the bottom will change to “Comments: (1)” and you’ll be on the board with your comment attached to this post, and with my thanks.

HAVE HAPPY AND MERRY HOLIDAY EVENTS!

December 17th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Gastrocolic Reflex, IBS Triggers, Strategies | 3 comments

Birthdays and Holidays Strategy - Foods for Irritable Bowel Syndrome

In this Holiday season, I wish you the best outcomes in managing your IBS! May the “merries” and “happies” that you hear, all apply to you!

This is the time of year that lots of families and groups exchange wish lists.

When you want some special items to control your IBS, and are not in control of the grocery shopping, one strategy is to put Amazon gift certificates on your wish list, so you can order items and try them out, or order items that you keep apart from the regular groceries. Gift certificates from all one place can be combined into a “shopping for my IBS” budget.

Best,
Tummyblogger

December 3rd, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | general, IBS food | no comments

Drs. Mehmet Oz and Michael Roizen on Oprah Radio

Sustenex ™ is a variant on Ganeden BC ^30 ™, a probiotic used also in the Digestive Advantage ™ line of products for IBS, IBS-C, Crohn’s Disease, and Lactose Intolerance.

Sustenex, however, is marketed as a health-promotion product, rather than as a health-improvement product like the Digestive Advantage line. I cannot find out from the online literature whether there is the same amount of Ganeden BC^30 in each of the Ganeden products. I would be interested to know the differences among their products.

The reason I have been reading the Sustenex materials at www.sustenex.com is that I received a press release from them (Ganeden Biotech), which is reproduced here, without the main image.

1-800-456-0276 DigestiveAdvantage@GanedenBiotech.com

Dr. Mehmet Oz radio show on Oprah & Friends™:

Date: Thursday, November 15th

Time: 7:00am, 1:00pm and 7:00pm

How to listen to the show: Tune in to XM Radio channel 156 or click here! to sign up for a 30-day free membership.

Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen, renowned doctors in cardiology, anesthesiology, and wellness are also the best selling authors of the YOU series of books. Their latest book, YOU: Staying Young was just released and is on the New York Times Best Sellers List.

Learn more about probiotics >>

Learn more about GanedenBC30 (Bacillus coagulans), our patented strain of probiotics >>

I am traveling out of town, and may not get to listen. Would you like to write a guest review of the radio show for the blog? Contact me tummyblogger [at] gmail.com?

And, to find out more about probiotics, especially for tummy problems such as IBS-C and IBS-D, and even IBS-A, read the following articles on this blog:

Originally from October 2006, on promising medical research:
http://www.formytummy.com/2007/04/20/medical-research-on-probiotic

Recommended Reading on Probiotics:
http://www.formytummy.com/2007/07/08/recommended-reading-on-probiotics-and-prebiotics/

And the series on Probiotics 101 and 102, as follows:

• http://www.formytummy.com/2007/07/08/probiotics-and-prebiotics-101-a/
• http://www.formytummy.com/2007/07/09/prebiotics-102-summary-of-readings/

That even funnier word, SYNbiotics, is covered in this article:
http://www.formytummy.com/2007/07/09/prebiotics-plus-probiotics-synbiotics/

Don’t forget PREbiotics, described in this article:
http://www.formytummy.com/2007/07/09/prebiotics-plus-probiotics-synbiotics/

November 14th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Probiotics, general, Digesting Information, Sustenex | one comment

You Know You Are Having a Bad IBS Day When . . .

You know you are having a bad IBS day when

You start talking unkindly to the button you are trying to sew onto that winter coat that it’s cold enough for, when it’s really all the fault of the needle.

You know you are having a stressful and bad IBS Day when

You drop and break a perfectly balanced, grooved, weighted glass that knows better than to leap out of your hand and crash to the floor.

So the stress catches up with you, and you know you are having a really stressful and bad IBS Day when

Your IBS-C turns into IBS-D.

November 12th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Blog, humor, general, IBS, IBS-C, IBS-D | no comments

Digestive Advantage-IBS Samples Report

Background
As I’ve mentioned before, I received free samples of Digestive Advantage-IBS (DA-IBS) ™ from Ganeden Biotech. The understanding with them was that I would write weekly reviews, in similar fashion to those I’ve written while sampling Align. They would not, and Procter & Gamble, who makes Align, did not, have any say over what I might write.

The Wrinkle
The complicating factor is that Ganeden Biotech makes two versions of Digestive Advantage-IBS. ™ I started with the form that is in a tiny caplet for swallowing. Then, after four weeks, I switched to the form of DA-IBS ™ that comes in chewable tablets. The reason for putting the chewable tablets second was that they contain a tiny amount of sucralose, the ingredient name for Splenda ™. Sucralose “works for me,” as one of the IBS triggers. It turned out that taking only that small amount of sucralose every day was no problem.

Report
I have already reported, after four weeks of taking the caplets, that Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ is my choice for probiotic. See this post.

BUT
After a couple of weeks taking the chewable tablets, I felt that they weren’t as strong or effective as the caplets. I often wound up taking two chewables a day. Then I would take one DA-IBS chewable in the morning, and “cheat” and take one DA-IBS caplet in the evening.

Then I just thought–this is not a clinical trial, after all. What I want is the caplets, not this solution that doesn’t quite work for me. So I stopped taking the chewable form of Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ completely.

Now I take one, or occasionally two, DA-IBS caplets every day. I think the difference is not the sucralose content. My theory is that the chewables are far less likely to deliver the probiotic ingredients–yes, the good bacteria–to the large intestine, which is where I need them. This is the criticism often made of products such as DanActive ™ and Activia ™, and it may work equally well for Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ Chewables.

Availability
If the form of Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ that is available at your pharmacy/ drugstore/ apothecary is the chewable form, and you would like to try the caplet, either ask the pharmacist to order the caplets or order DA-IBS ™ caplets online from Amazon.com. It’s shipped directly from Amazon.com, not from an allied store, so should be available and fast.

November 9th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Probiotics, IBS Triggers, Align, Dannon Activia Yogurt, Digestive Advantage - IBS | one comment

The Trouble with IBS or Irritable Bowel Syndrome

The social impact of disease names is variable, and sometimes immense. If you have one “pariah” or outcast disease, like athlete’s foot, suggests the following article excerpt, you just don’t rate.

What if illnesses, ailments and diseases were brands? You’d have your embarrassing, awkward ones like irritable bowel syndrome and athlete’s foot. Your once well-known, but obscure ones that you find only in history books or Delmas, like diptheria and typhoid and polio. The diseases that everyone’s heard of but nobody knows much about, like multiple sclerosis and cystic fibrosis (hey, that rhymes). There are the ones that fill us with dread, like Alzheimer’s. The cancers are in a category of their own. And there are the truly terrifying, faintly exotic ones like Ebola or mad cow disease, diseases you never want to catch but which have a certain dark glamour nonetheless.

See more of Sarah Britten’s musings, on the light side of disease names, at http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/britten/2007/10/24/if-diseases-were-brands-part-i/

If IBS had a different name, like Arugula — which always did sound like a disease name to me — we would still have to answer questions of “what does it mean?” Still, we might get away with using words like “tummy” in the definition, rather than “bowel.” I’m not a fan of baby words like tummy, most of the time, but “Irritable Bowel Syndrome?” Come ON! Can’t we say “I have been diagnosed with “Chronic Pain in the Tummy” (CPIT) or “Continual Runs, usually Diarrhea” (CRUD).

What difference would a change of name make in your life? Let us know with a comment.

October 26th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Blog, humor, IBS | no comments

Wow! Four Weeks of Digestive Advantage-IBS ™

Reviewing Digestive Advantage-IBS and Align
After approximately ten weeks of using Align ™ probiotic caplets, and filing my objective reports of the experience, I thought it was a pretty good product with some real problems in pricing and supply. {See my Align reviews}

Four weeks ago this past Monday, I started Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ (DA) in caplet form. {See my earlier DA reviews.}At that time, and for a year at least before then, the caplets were readily available through Amazon.com and other online sources, and the chewable tablets could be purchased at the CVS across the street. The price of DA was about half that of Align ™. I knew that DA had the problems of pricing and supply licked.

Problems with GERD on Align
What I didn’t report, in the ten weeks or so that I took Align ™, was that I had ever increasing (and recurring) problems with GERD. After all, Align was a probiotic aimed at affecting digestion in the large intestine. Toward the end of the time on Align, I was taking Prilosec ™ OTC as well as Ranitidine 150 mg. on a daily basis to control GERD.

Prilosec ™ is only supposed to be taken for two weeks, and I had just started DA when the two weeks were up. My GERD was under control for the moment, so I thought, I’ll continue with the Ranitidine and wait and see on the Prilosec, expecting that “any day now” I would need Prilosec again.

IBS and GERD All Clear, on Digestive Advantage-IBS
The “WOW!” in the title is that during the four weeks on Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ I have never needed to go back on Prilosec ™. Align ™ gave me ever-increasing problems with GERD; the NSI probiotic 15-35 that I took before beginning Align also gave me problems with GERD. I thought it went with the territory. Four weeks plus without GERD is amazing to me.

Otherwise, Digestive Advantage-IBS ™ (plus diet, exercise, all that good stuff) has controlled my IBS tummy very well. I have begun to add fruits and vegetables–sometimes cautiously, sometimes not,. When I’ve added a fruit or vegetable that doesn’t work too well for me, and have an evening of a slightly rocky tummy, I take a second DA caplet. Generally in a half hour, and certainly by morning, I’m fine.

Subjective vs. Objective
My report is only subjective, and certainly not a scientific study. In spite of reports to the contrary, Digestive Advantage-IBS does have adequately controlled scientific studies that show significant results for IBS pain and bloating. In addition, my comparison of Align ™ with DA indicates that, while both are a little bit constipating to my system (with IBS-C), DA is slightly more so, making it potentially better for people with IBS-D. The constipating effect can be countered, if desired, by half a teaspoon more of Heather’s Organic Acacia Tummy Fiber ™ or Fibersure ™ or a guar gum Soluble Fiber Supplement.

Summary: A Probiotic for IBS *and* GERD
So, for the purpose of taking a probiotic, and for taking a probiotic that is easily available, and for taking a probiotic that is cheaper than most others on the market, I have a summary comment below.

Bottom Line
Not only a Digestive Advantage, but also a competitive advantage.

October 19th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Probiotics, Align, NSI Probiotics, Digestive Advantage - IBS | 6 comments